PRIO welcomes you to a seminar on the new UN “Guidance for Mediatiors: Addressing Conflict-Related Sexual Violence in Ceasefire and Peace Agreements” with Gina Torry, gender and peacebuilding expert, and Kai Eide, the former United Nations Special Representative to Afghanistan.

The United Nations Department of Political Affairs (DPA) recently launched its Guidance for Mediators: Addressing Conflict-Related Sexual Violence in Ceasefire and Peace Agreements.

At the launch the guidance was referred to as “a milestone for the United Nations: it is a critical and long-awaited framework which will, for the first time, provide mediators, and their advisers and staff, with normative principles and concrete strategies for addressing an increasingly utilized and highly destructive tactic of warfare: conflict-related sexual violence”.

At this seminar the guidance will be introduced and ways for how to practically implement some of the ideas and strategies will be discussed.

Bios:

Gina Torry is a gender and peacebuilding expert who specializes in Security Council-related policy and initiatives. She has worked with the United Nations, Member States, regional organizations, as well as women's civil society groups and networks. In collaboration with mediators and mediation experts, she finalized DPA/United Nation's new "Guidance for Mediators on addressing Conflict-Related Sexual Violence in Ceasefire and Peace Agreements". Torry is the former Coordinator of the NGO Working Group on Women, Peace and Security (2005-2008). She has authored several publications including “Financing Inclusive Peace and Security for Women in Nepal: From the Comprehensive Peace Agreement to the Nepal Peace Trust Fund”(2010, EC/UN). In 2007, Torry was invited, in her capacity as Coordinator of the NGO Working Group, to address the UN Security Council in an Open Debate on Women, Peace and Security.

Kai Eide is the former United Nations Special Representative to Afghanistan and head of UNAMA (2008-2010). He currently serves as a Special Adviser at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and before his post in Afghanistan, he was Political Director in the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2006-2008). Kai has spent significant parts of his diplomatic career in the UN, NATO, the OSCE and CSCE. He has also written extensively on foreign policy issues, primarily on Balkan affairs. His latest book Power struggle over Afghanistan (Cappelen Damm, 2010) details his two years in Afghanistan.